Happy Holidays - Explore Big Sky

RegiOnaL
foreST JoBS and reCreaTion aCT SHeLved unTiL SPring SeSSion
By Emily Stifler
On December 16 at midnight, the
U.S. Congress essentially killed
the Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
Montana Senator Jon Tester’s Forest
Jobs and Recreation Act was part of
this bill. Tester spokesman Aaron
Murphy says, “Partisan politics shot
down this measure, but it won’t
keep Jon from creating Montana
jobs—through middle-class tax
relief, strengthening family agriculture
and small businesses, and
working together with Montanans
on bipartisan plans like his forest
jobs bill.”
Murphy says a debate over earmarks
stopped the Omnibus bill, which
would have funded the government
gardiner and
THe ParadiSe
vaLLey
A Marine stationed in Afghanistan is
requesting school supplies to donate
to three schools in his district. Drop
supplies off at the Food Farm or the
Gardiner School.
6 December 24, 2010
for the upcoming year. Going forward,
the federal government will
rely on temporary funding.
Tester first introduced this controversial
bill in July of 2009 and
adjusted the bill after 11 public
listening sessions with Montanans.
The new version is renamed the
Montana Forest Jobs and Restoration
Pilot Initiative and would affect
communities and wild lands in
Southwest Montana. Its programs
would preserve key wildlife habitat
adjacent to the Lee Metcalf and
Snowcrest wilderness areas. The bill
would also maintain recreational
use in certain areas requested by
snowmobilers and mountain bikers,
such as Mcatee Basin south of Big
Sky and 5,000 acres in the Tobacco
The Gardiner/Mammoth crosscountry
ski team will begin practices
the first week of January. The team
is open to 4th-12th grade students in
the area. $50 for the season includes
wax and instructions. Call Doug
Madsen (307) 344-6511 for more
information. HAVE FUN/ GO FAST!
The Mammoth Community Center
will be hosting Winter Wednesday
Potlucks through March 30,
ORGANIC COFFEE, ESPRESSO AND TEA
OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK 6:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M.
LOCATION - IN FRONT OF EXXON ON HWY 191,
1/4 MI. SOUTH OF BIG SKY TURNOFF
Roots. In addition, it would mandate
the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National
Forest to conduct annual landscape
restoration projects to reduce forest
fuels near communities, provide
jobs and restore damaged streams
and trout fisheries.
If implemented, these laws would
leave most of this land on the Madison
Ranger District under the same
management as it is now, says John
Gatchell, Conservation Director for
the Montana Wilderness Association.
Certain historic use would also
remain the same: trail access in the
Lee Metcalf at Cowboys’ Heaven and
in the East Pioneers, sheep trailing
across the Snowcrest Range, access
to water infrastructure for irrigators
in wilderness areas designated
2011. Join each Wednesday (Except
12/15) from 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Bring a dish to share and your own
place settings.
The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is
competing for $250,000 in the Pepsi
Refresh contest. Support a Gardiner
Baby by voting at refresheverything.com.
You can vote daily on the
website, on Facebook, and by texting
102534 to Pepsi (73774) through
December 31.
mSu Bozeman
This past July, Chad Diehl, an MSU
history major (’03), published Raft
of Corpses, a book of translated
poems written by a survivor of the
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, Japan. During his
undergrad, Diehl won a Fulbright
Fellowship to spend a year studying
in Japan. He was later awarded funding
for graduate studies at Columbia
University in New York and is now
completing his doctoral work.
Diehl grew up in a working class
family in Gardiner, Montana, where
he played high school football. He
told Evelyn Boswell with the MSU
news service that he remembers
“shooing elk away from the football
field and the coach calling a game
warden to deal with the more dangerous
bison.”
Cooke CiTy and
yeLLoWSTone
Park
There is over 60 inches of snow on the
ground at 9,000 feet outside of Cooke
City. The avalanche center has reported
a few nasty persistent weak layers in
the snowpack, so be cautious if you’re
out skiing, snowmobiling or traveling
anywhere in the backcountry.
Big Sky Weekly
by the bill, and loop roads in the
West Big Hole. The bill would also
authorize use of federal funds for
biomass facilities.
Opponents of Tester’s bill lie on
both ends of the political spectrum.
Environmentalists say it doesn’t
include enough wilderness designation.
Conservatives say it would
restrict motorized use. The bill’s
supporters are largely moderate
environmental groups and their odd
bedfellows: logging companies that
would profit from the mandates.
With the Omnibus Act shelved,
the path forward for the forest bill is
unclear. Stay tuned.
tester.senate.gov/forest
As of December 15, Yellowstone
opened most interior park roads to
commercially guided snowmobile
and snowcoach travel. Limited, managed
motorized oversnow travel over
groomed, snow-packed park roads will
be permitted again this season under
the same temporary plan as last year.
The plan allows up to 318 commercially
guided, Best Available Technology
(BAT) snowmobiles, and up to 78 commercially
guided snowcoaches a day
into the park. The Old Faithful Visitor
Education Center also reopened.
u of m WeSTern
in diLLon
The Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching and the
Council for Advancement and Support
of Education recently named
University of Montana Western Professor
of Education Delena Norris-
Tull as 2010 Montana Professor of
the Year. This honor was made official
at the annual U.S.. Professors of the
Year awards ceremonies in Washington,
D.C. in November.
“This university has been producing
remarkable teachers since 1893,”
Norris-Tull says. She says Montana
Western’s block-scheduling system,
Experience One, prepares students by
giving them the benefit of studying
in an immersion-learning environment.
Through this program, students
take one class at a time for three
hours per day, and are able to focus
intensely on a particular subject.
WeST
yeLLoWSTone
The cross-country ski trails are in great
shape with a firm base and both classic
tracks and skate lanes. The Rendezvous
Ski Trails are open seven days a
week and are ideal for a holiday ski.
The Gallatin National Forest Ava-